French government collapse turns the screws on Macron

PARIS — The collapse of France’s government on Wednesday night means it now finally falls to President Emmanuel Macron to step up and confront a snowballing political and economic crisis that risks sending shock waves across the eurozone.

After a heated debate in the National Assembly — marked by raucous jeers and boos — 331 of France’s 577 lawmakers voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a vote of no confidence after he tried to force through an austere budget to fix the country’s yawning deficits.   

Once he formally resigns, Barnier will become the shortest-lived prime minister in the history of the modern French republic and the first to be booted out by parliament since 1962.  

The political chaos led a growing number of lawmakers to demand the resignation of Macron, whose term lasts until 2027. That would be an almost-unprecedented move in modern French politics. Macron’s office said the president will address the political impasse in a speech on Thursday at 8 p.m.
 
Speaking before the vote, far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Macron would “sacrifice the fate of France because of his vanity” if he failed to step aside.  

“Emmanuel Macron has attacked the foundation walls of the nation for the past seven years,” Le Pen said, earning a round of applause from her troops as they tried to drown out the boos from Barnier’s allies. “He alone can pull the country out of the rut it’s in [with his resignation].” 

Mathilde Panot of the hard-left France Unbowed party said Wednesday’s vote was a defeat for “all of Emmanuel Macron’s policies.”  

“To break the deadlock, we ask for Emmanuel Macron to go,” she said to reporters after the vote. 

As the crisis — largely triggered by Macron’s knee-jerk call for a snap election this summer — mounted to fever pitch, the president stayed on the sidelines.

He arrived back at the Élysée palace from Saudi Arabia only just before his government collapsed and will now need to take the helm himself, not least by proposing a new prime minister who can right the ship and prove that the EU’s second-largest economy has not become ungovernable. 

Barnier himself accused the lawmakers of acting irresponsibility by bringing down his government.  

“I cannot accept the idea that institutional destabilization could be the objective that brings together a majority of lawmakers at a moment when our country faces a deep moral, economic, financial and civic crisis,” he said before the vote.  

There’s nothing, however, to suggest it would be easier to form a government capable of winning the endorsement of a parliament split three ways than it was three months ago. Dissolution is also not an option, as Macron can’t call new elections until summer 2025. 

“This [National] Assembly is impossible,” Barnier told his ministers gathered in the Matignon palace after the vote, according to a participant there who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with French protocol. “I sincerely wish the next team the best of luck.” 

In the immediate term, France must prepare for uncharted territory.  

The country will almost certainly enter the new year without a budget, and while Barnier could be asked to stay on as a caretaker and put forward emergency laws, such measures would do nothing to bring down a deficit — currently projected at 6.1 percent of gross domestic product — that has frightened financial markets and drawn rebuke from Brussels. 

Investors deemed France as risky an investment as Greece after weeks of concern that the political crisis could evolve into a financial one if lawmakers could not agree to Barnier’s prescription of a bitter potion of fiscal prudence and old-fashioned austerity measures.  

The political upheaval could hardly come at a worse time for Europe, which is in dire need of leadership to confront challenges ranging from the return of Donald Trump to the conflict in Ukraine and a potential trade war with China. Germany, the other half of the engine that powers the continent, is ill-equipped to take the reins while struggling with its own political mess and a sputtering economy.  

Sarah Paillou contributed to this report.